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When I was a child in the 1950s， my friends
and I had two educations. We had school， and we also had what I call a hunter-gatherer education. We played in mixed-age neighbourhood groups almost every day after school， often until dark. We played all weekend and all summer long. We had time to explore in all sorts of ways， and also time to become bored and figure out how to overcome 1）boredom， time to get into trouble and find our way out of it， time to daydream， time to immerse ourselves in hobbies， and time to read comics and whatever else we wanted to read rather than the books assigned to us. What I learnt in my hunter-gatherer education has been far more valuable to my adult life than what I learnt in school.
For more than 50 years now， we in the United States have been gradually reducing children’s opportunities to play， and the same is true in many other countries. In his book Children at Play： An American History （2007）， Howard Chudacoff refers to the first half of the 20th century as the “golden age” of children’s free play. By about 1900， the need for child labour had declined， so children had a good deal of free time. But then， beginning around 1960 or a little before， adults began 2）chipping away at that freedom by increasing the time that children had to spend on schoolwork and， even more significantly， by reducing children’s freedom to play on their own， even when they were out of school and not doing homework.
Over the same decades that children’s play has been declining， childhood mental disorders have been increasing. Analyses reveal a continuous， essentially 3）linear， increase in anxiety and depression in young people over the decades， such that the rates of what today would be diagnosed as 4）generalised anxiety disorder and major depression are five to eight times what they were in the 1950s. Over the same period， the suicide rate for young people aged 15 to 24 has more than doubled， and that for children under age 15 has 5）quadrupled.
In an article entitled “The Test Chinese Schools Still Fail” in The Wall Street Journal in December 2010， Jiang Xueqin， a prominent Chinese educator， wrote：“The failings of a 6）rote-memorisation system are well known： lack of social and practical skills， absence of self-discipline and imagination， loss of curiosity and passion for learning.” Meanwhile， Yong Zhao， an American education professor who grew up in China and specialises in comparing the Chinese educational system with the system in the U.S.， notes that a common term used in China to refer to graduates is gaofen dineng， meaning “high scores but low ability”. Because students spend nearly all their time studying， they have little opportunity to be creative， take initiative， or develop physical and social skills： in short， they have little opportunity to play. Unfortunately， as we move increasingly toward standardised curricula， and as we occupy ever more of our children’s time with schoolwork， our educational results are indeed becoming more like those of the Asian countries. One line of evidence comes from the results of a battery of measures of creativity—called the 7）Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking （TTCT）—collected from normative samples of U.S. schoolchildren ranging from kindergarten through to 12th grade covering several decades. Kyung-Hee Kim， an educational psychologist at the College of William and Mary in Virginia， has analysed these scores and reported that they began to decline in 1984 or shortly after， and have continued to decline ever since.
You can’t teach creativity； all you can do is let it blossom. Little children， before they start school， are naturally creative. Our greatest innovators， the ones we call geniuses， are those who somehow retain that childhood capacity， and build on it， right through adulthood. Albert Einstein， who apparently hated school， referred to his achievements in 8）theoretical physics and mathematics as “9）combinatorial play”. A great deal of research has shown that people are most creative when infused by the spirit of play， when they see themselves as engaged in a task just for fun. It’s hard to be creative when you are worried about other people’s judgments. In school， children’s activities are constantly being judged.
To have a happy marriage， or good friends， or helpful work partners， we need to know how to get along with other people： perhaps the most essential skill all children must learn for a satisfying life. Social play is the academy for learning social skills.
The reason why play is such a powerful way to impart social skills is that it is voluntary. Players are always free to quit， and if they are unhappy they will quit. Every player knows that， and so the goal， for every player who wants to keep the game going， is to satisfy his or her own needs and desires while also satisfying those of the other players， so they don’t quit. To have fun in social play you have to be 10）assertive but not domineering； that’s true for all of social life.
In school， and in other settings where adults are in charge， they make decisions for children and solve children’s problems. In play， children make their own decisions and solve their own problems. In adult-directed settings， children are weak and vulnerable. In play， they are strong and powerful. The play world is the child’s practice world for being an adult. We think of play as childish， but to the child， play is the experience of being like an adult： being self-controlled and responsible. In recent decades we as a society have been conducting a play-11）deprivation experiment with our children. Play deprivation is bad for children. Among other things， it promotes anxiety， depression， suicide， 12）narcissism， and the loss of creativity. It’s time to end the experiment.
上世纪50年代，在我儿时，我和伙伴们同时接受两种教育。我们去学校上学，也接受一种我称之为“采猎式”的教育。几乎每天放学后，我们都与附近由不同年龄的孩子组成的群体一起玩耍，而且常常玩到天黑。所有的周末，所有的夏天，我们都在玩耍中度过。我们有时间去尝试各种各样的玩法，也有时间玩到腻歪，然后想办法打破沉闷，有时间碰上麻烦，然后想法子摆脱困境，有时间做白日梦，有时间专注到自己的兴趣当中，有时间看漫画，以及其它任何我们想看而不是硬塞给我们的书。与在学校里所受到的教育相比，我在采猎式教育中所学到的一切对我的成年生活来说更有价值。
五十多年以来，在美国，孩子们玩耍的机会被渐渐蚕食，这种情况在其他国家也是如此。霍华德·丘达科夫在他的《游戏中的孩子：一段美国历史》（2007）一书中指出，二十世纪上半页是孩子们自由玩耍的“黄金时期”。大约到了1900年，童工的需求减少，于是孩子们有了大量的自由时间。但是，约从1960年甚至更早一些时间开始，成年人开始逐步剥夺孩子们的自由，让他们花更多的时间在作业上。更有甚者，即便是他们放学了，不用做作业，父母也不让他们自由玩耍。
在孩子们的玩耍时间减少的同时期，儿童期精神紊乱的情况却增加了。有分析显示，几十年来年轻人身上的焦虑和沮丧程度呈持续线性增长。这种症状在今天会被诊断为广泛性焦虑症和重度抑郁症，其人数比例是上世纪50年代时的五到八倍。同期，15到24岁间的青少年自杀率翻了一倍多，15岁以下儿童的自杀率则呈四倍增长。
2010年12月的《华尔街日报》上，在一篇题为《中国学校依然考不及格的试》的文章中，中国知名教育家江学勤写到：“死记硬背的缺点众所周知：缺乏社交和实践能力，缺乏自律和想象力，丧失好奇心和学习热情。”与此同时，一位在中国长大，并主攻中美教育体系比较的美国教育学教授赵勇指出，在中国，一个形容毕业生的常用词就是“高分低能”，也就是说“分数很高，能力很低”。因为学生们几乎把所有的时间都花在学习上，很少有机会发挥创造力、主动性，或是发展体育和社交技能：简而言之，他们很少有机会玩。
不幸的是，我们越往课程标准化的方向发展，越是让孩子们在功课上花更多的时间，我们的教育结果其实正越来越像那些亚洲国家。证据之一源于一系列被称为“托兰斯创造性思维测试”（TTCT）的创造力评估。评估采样来自于几十年以来从幼儿园到12年级的美国学童的标准样本。弗吉尼亚威廉和玛丽学院的教育心理学家金庚熙（音译）对评分进行了分析，指出评估分数从1984年或其后不久便开始下降，而且从此以后持续下降。
创造力无法传授；你所能做的只是让其发展。小孩子，在上学前，就天生富于创造性。我们最伟大的那些革新者，我们称之为天才的人，是那些多少保存了那种童年能力，并在成年期以之为基础建功立业的人。艾伯特·爱因斯坦显然不喜欢学校，他将自己在理论物理和数学方面的成就称为“组合的游戏”。大量研究表明，当人们认为自己投身某项任务只是为了好玩，当他们被游戏的精神所鼓舞时，其创造性是最旺盛的。你在担心其他人的评价时是很难有创造力的。在学校里，孩子们的活动却会不断受到评价。
想要拥有一段幸福的婚姻、拥有好朋友或者有益的工作拍档，我们就必须学会与他人的相处之道——这或许也是所有孩子获得美满人生所必须学习的最关键的技能。社交游戏是学习社交技能的学堂。
玩游戏之所以是传授社交技能的一种有力方式，就是因为那是自主自愿的。玩家可以自由退出游戏，所以如果他们觉得不开心，就会离开。每个玩家都知道这一点，因此，对于每一个想让游戏继续的玩家，他们的目标就是在满足自己的需求和愿望的同时也要满足别人的需求和愿望，这样他们才不会离开。想要在社交游戏中获得乐趣，你必须得有主见但不专横——这一点，在所有的社会生活中亦是如此。
在学校，或是其他由成年人掌控的环境中，大人们为孩子做决定，为他们解决问题。在游戏中，孩子们得自己做决定，自己去解决问题。在大人主导的情境中，孩子们是虚弱无助的。在游戏中，他们是强壮有力的。游戏的世界，就是孩子们实践成人身份的世界。我们认为游戏很幼稚，但是对于孩子来说，游戏是一种扮演大人的经验：学会自我控制和承担责任。
在近几十年里，我们整个社会一直在做一个剥夺孩子游戏权利的实验。剥夺游戏权利于儿童无益。此外，这么做还加剧了焦虑、沮丧、自杀倾向、自恋心理以及创造力的丧失。是时候要结束这个可怕的实验了。
and I had two educations. We had school， and we also had what I call a hunter-gatherer education. We played in mixed-age neighbourhood groups almost every day after school， often until dark. We played all weekend and all summer long. We had time to explore in all sorts of ways， and also time to become bored and figure out how to overcome 1）boredom， time to get into trouble and find our way out of it， time to daydream， time to immerse ourselves in hobbies， and time to read comics and whatever else we wanted to read rather than the books assigned to us. What I learnt in my hunter-gatherer education has been far more valuable to my adult life than what I learnt in school.
For more than 50 years now， we in the United States have been gradually reducing children’s opportunities to play， and the same is true in many other countries. In his book Children at Play： An American History （2007）， Howard Chudacoff refers to the first half of the 20th century as the “golden age” of children’s free play. By about 1900， the need for child labour had declined， so children had a good deal of free time. But then， beginning around 1960 or a little before， adults began 2）chipping away at that freedom by increasing the time that children had to spend on schoolwork and， even more significantly， by reducing children’s freedom to play on their own， even when they were out of school and not doing homework.
Over the same decades that children’s play has been declining， childhood mental disorders have been increasing. Analyses reveal a continuous， essentially 3）linear， increase in anxiety and depression in young people over the decades， such that the rates of what today would be diagnosed as 4）generalised anxiety disorder and major depression are five to eight times what they were in the 1950s. Over the same period， the suicide rate for young people aged 15 to 24 has more than doubled， and that for children under age 15 has 5）quadrupled.
In an article entitled “The Test Chinese Schools Still Fail” in The Wall Street Journal in December 2010， Jiang Xueqin， a prominent Chinese educator， wrote：“The failings of a 6）rote-memorisation system are well known： lack of social and practical skills， absence of self-discipline and imagination， loss of curiosity and passion for learning.” Meanwhile， Yong Zhao， an American education professor who grew up in China and specialises in comparing the Chinese educational system with the system in the U.S.， notes that a common term used in China to refer to graduates is gaofen dineng， meaning “high scores but low ability”. Because students spend nearly all their time studying， they have little opportunity to be creative， take initiative， or develop physical and social skills： in short， they have little opportunity to play. Unfortunately， as we move increasingly toward standardised curricula， and as we occupy ever more of our children’s time with schoolwork， our educational results are indeed becoming more like those of the Asian countries. One line of evidence comes from the results of a battery of measures of creativity—called the 7）Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking （TTCT）—collected from normative samples of U.S. schoolchildren ranging from kindergarten through to 12th grade covering several decades. Kyung-Hee Kim， an educational psychologist at the College of William and Mary in Virginia， has analysed these scores and reported that they began to decline in 1984 or shortly after， and have continued to decline ever since.
You can’t teach creativity； all you can do is let it blossom. Little children， before they start school， are naturally creative. Our greatest innovators， the ones we call geniuses， are those who somehow retain that childhood capacity， and build on it， right through adulthood. Albert Einstein， who apparently hated school， referred to his achievements in 8）theoretical physics and mathematics as “9）combinatorial play”. A great deal of research has shown that people are most creative when infused by the spirit of play， when they see themselves as engaged in a task just for fun. It’s hard to be creative when you are worried about other people’s judgments. In school， children’s activities are constantly being judged.
To have a happy marriage， or good friends， or helpful work partners， we need to know how to get along with other people： perhaps the most essential skill all children must learn for a satisfying life. Social play is the academy for learning social skills.
The reason why play is such a powerful way to impart social skills is that it is voluntary. Players are always free to quit， and if they are unhappy they will quit. Every player knows that， and so the goal， for every player who wants to keep the game going， is to satisfy his or her own needs and desires while also satisfying those of the other players， so they don’t quit. To have fun in social play you have to be 10）assertive but not domineering； that’s true for all of social life.
In school， and in other settings where adults are in charge， they make decisions for children and solve children’s problems. In play， children make their own decisions and solve their own problems. In adult-directed settings， children are weak and vulnerable. In play， they are strong and powerful. The play world is the child’s practice world for being an adult. We think of play as childish， but to the child， play is the experience of being like an adult： being self-controlled and responsible. In recent decades we as a society have been conducting a play-11）deprivation experiment with our children. Play deprivation is bad for children. Among other things， it promotes anxiety， depression， suicide， 12）narcissism， and the loss of creativity. It’s time to end the experiment.
上世纪50年代，在我儿时，我和伙伴们同时接受两种教育。我们去学校上学，也接受一种我称之为“采猎式”的教育。几乎每天放学后，我们都与附近由不同年龄的孩子组成的群体一起玩耍，而且常常玩到天黑。所有的周末，所有的夏天，我们都在玩耍中度过。我们有时间去尝试各种各样的玩法，也有时间玩到腻歪，然后想办法打破沉闷，有时间碰上麻烦，然后想法子摆脱困境，有时间做白日梦，有时间专注到自己的兴趣当中，有时间看漫画，以及其它任何我们想看而不是硬塞给我们的书。与在学校里所受到的教育相比，我在采猎式教育中所学到的一切对我的成年生活来说更有价值。
五十多年以来，在美国，孩子们玩耍的机会被渐渐蚕食，这种情况在其他国家也是如此。霍华德·丘达科夫在他的《游戏中的孩子：一段美国历史》（2007）一书中指出，二十世纪上半页是孩子们自由玩耍的“黄金时期”。大约到了1900年，童工的需求减少，于是孩子们有了大量的自由时间。但是，约从1960年甚至更早一些时间开始，成年人开始逐步剥夺孩子们的自由，让他们花更多的时间在作业上。更有甚者，即便是他们放学了，不用做作业，父母也不让他们自由玩耍。
在孩子们的玩耍时间减少的同时期，儿童期精神紊乱的情况却增加了。有分析显示，几十年来年轻人身上的焦虑和沮丧程度呈持续线性增长。这种症状在今天会被诊断为广泛性焦虑症和重度抑郁症，其人数比例是上世纪50年代时的五到八倍。同期，15到24岁间的青少年自杀率翻了一倍多，15岁以下儿童的自杀率则呈四倍增长。
2010年12月的《华尔街日报》上，在一篇题为《中国学校依然考不及格的试》的文章中，中国知名教育家江学勤写到：“死记硬背的缺点众所周知：缺乏社交和实践能力，缺乏自律和想象力，丧失好奇心和学习热情。”与此同时，一位在中国长大，并主攻中美教育体系比较的美国教育学教授赵勇指出，在中国，一个形容毕业生的常用词就是“高分低能”，也就是说“分数很高，能力很低”。因为学生们几乎把所有的时间都花在学习上，很少有机会发挥创造力、主动性，或是发展体育和社交技能：简而言之，他们很少有机会玩。
不幸的是，我们越往课程标准化的方向发展，越是让孩子们在功课上花更多的时间，我们的教育结果其实正越来越像那些亚洲国家。证据之一源于一系列被称为“托兰斯创造性思维测试”（TTCT）的创造力评估。评估采样来自于几十年以来从幼儿园到12年级的美国学童的标准样本。弗吉尼亚威廉和玛丽学院的教育心理学家金庚熙（音译）对评分进行了分析，指出评估分数从1984年或其后不久便开始下降，而且从此以后持续下降。
创造力无法传授；你所能做的只是让其发展。小孩子，在上学前，就天生富于创造性。我们最伟大的那些革新者，我们称之为天才的人，是那些多少保存了那种童年能力，并在成年期以之为基础建功立业的人。艾伯特·爱因斯坦显然不喜欢学校，他将自己在理论物理和数学方面的成就称为“组合的游戏”。大量研究表明，当人们认为自己投身某项任务只是为了好玩，当他们被游戏的精神所鼓舞时，其创造性是最旺盛的。你在担心其他人的评价时是很难有创造力的。在学校里，孩子们的活动却会不断受到评价。
想要拥有一段幸福的婚姻、拥有好朋友或者有益的工作拍档，我们就必须学会与他人的相处之道——这或许也是所有孩子获得美满人生所必须学习的最关键的技能。社交游戏是学习社交技能的学堂。
玩游戏之所以是传授社交技能的一种有力方式，就是因为那是自主自愿的。玩家可以自由退出游戏，所以如果他们觉得不开心，就会离开。每个玩家都知道这一点，因此，对于每一个想让游戏继续的玩家，他们的目标就是在满足自己的需求和愿望的同时也要满足别人的需求和愿望，这样他们才不会离开。想要在社交游戏中获得乐趣，你必须得有主见但不专横——这一点，在所有的社会生活中亦是如此。
在学校，或是其他由成年人掌控的环境中，大人们为孩子做决定，为他们解决问题。在游戏中，孩子们得自己做决定，自己去解决问题。在大人主导的情境中，孩子们是虚弱无助的。在游戏中，他们是强壮有力的。游戏的世界，就是孩子们实践成人身份的世界。我们认为游戏很幼稚，但是对于孩子来说，游戏是一种扮演大人的经验：学会自我控制和承担责任。
在近几十年里，我们整个社会一直在做一个剥夺孩子游戏权利的实验。剥夺游戏权利于儿童无益。此外，这么做还加剧了焦虑、沮丧、自杀倾向、自恋心理以及创造力的丧失。是时候要结束这个可怕的实验了。